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SILICON VILLAGE

Saturday, October 7, 2017

Amazon announced that Alexa, the brain that powers Amazon Echo,
is coming to India, along with three Alexa-enabled devices: Echo, Echo Plus,
and Echo Dot. Customers who want to help further the development of Alexa and
the Echo family of devices may request an invitation to purchase devices
beginning today at www.amazon.in. As a thank you, for a limited
time, eligible customers will receive an introductory discount of 30% off the
purchase price of Echo devices and one year of Prime membership. Devices will
ship beginning the week of October 30.

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Echo, Echo Plus, and Echo Dot are voice-controlled speakers
designed entirely around your voice—they are always ready, hands-free, and
fast. Alexa is the brain behind Echo—since Alexa runs in the cloud, the service
is always getting smarter. Just ask, and Alexa will answer questions, play
music, read the news, set timers and alarms, check the calendar, provide sports
scores, control lights at home, and much more. With Echo’s far-field voice
control, you can do all this from across the room using just your voice.

In India, Alexa delivers a customised Indian experience,
including an all-new English voice with local pronunciations and intonation;
support for music titles, names, and places in additional non-English
languages; local knowledge; and local skills from Indian developers. Third
party developers in India are already building new, localised skills for Alexa,
and over 10,000 skills will be available for customers in India, including
skills from Saavn, Times of India, ESPNcricinfo, Ola, Freshmenu, and more.

“Tens of millions of customers are already using Alexa, and
today we’re excited to bring her to India with an all-new experience designed
from the ground up for our customers in India,” said Dave Limp, Senior Vice
President, Amazon Devices and Services. “The combination of Alexa and Echo
provides customers with hands-free access to music, weather, news, information,
and more—just ask.”

Customers in the US, UK and Germany have left more than 100,000
5-star reviews for Echo and Echo Dot—here’s what they’re saying:

·“I love, love, love Alexa. I use it
every single day. I can't even count how many people I have recommended Echo
to.”

·“Echo is easy to setup and easy to use.
I love it. Five stars out of five.”

·“An ingenious device. Already firmly
integrated into the family. Become indispensable. Great sound and beautiful
design. A must have for every technology freak.”

Amazon Echo—The Hands-Free, Always On Speaker for just ₹9,999

Echo is a hands-free, voice-controlled speaker that allows you
to access Alexa from anywhere in the room with far-field voice control. It uses
on-device software to detect the wake word, “Alexa.” When Echo detects the wake
word, the device’s light ring turns blue and begins streaming the request to the
cloud where Alexa processes the request. Since Alexa is built in the cloud and
leverages Amazon Web Services, the Alexa Voice Service is always getting
smarter and adding more functionality.

Amazon Echo has an array of seven microphones that use
beam-forming technology and noise cancellation so it can clearly hear you from
across the room. This advanced beam-forming technology combines the signals
from the individual microphones to suppress noise, reverberation, the music
currently playing, and even competing speech to make sure Alexa clearly hears
your request, even when in a noisy room.

Omnidirectional, Room-Filling Sound

Amazon Echo has been fine-tuned to deliver crisp vocals with
dynamic bass response. Its 2.5” down-firing woofer, dedicated tweeter, Dolby
processing, and 360° omni-directional audio deliver crisp vocals and dynamic
bass throughout the room. Echo can stream music directly from popular music
services such as Amazon Prime Music, Saavn, TuneIn, and more. Echo is also
Bluetooth-enabled so you can stream music directly from your phone or tablet.

Designed to Disappear

Amazon Echo is designed to disappear into your home. Pick from a
variety of shell colors and finishes to fit into your home’s décor—choices
include charcoal, sandstone, and heather gray.